Demographic Info

Anatoly Onoprienko was born on July 25, 1959, in Zhytomyr, Ukrainian SSR. He was the youngest child of two in his family. Onoprienko’s mother died at the age of 4 and after being cared for by his grandparents for a number of years, he was sent to an orphanage. It is believed that during his time in the orphanage, Onoprienko developed his hatred for the family unit.

Onoprienko began his serial series in 1989, at the age of 30, and ended when he was arrested in 1996. Onoprienko typically chose an isolated home and made noise until the members of the family were alerted to his presence. He would then murder the members of the family one by one. Onoprienko murdered the adult male first and then would proceed to murder the remaining members of the family. He was also known to have murdered witnesses that were near or at the crime scenes. Onoprienko preferred to murder his victims with a shotgun.

On April 16, 1996, Onoprienko was arrested for the murders of of numerous people. Prior to his arrest, the police arrested Yury Mozola for the murders. The police tortured Mozola for numerous days, which caused his death. While Onoprienko was in prison, he confessed to the murders of 52 people and was later found guilty. Onoprienko was sentenced to death, but this sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.